


Practiced Disinterest

by roberre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roberre/pseuds/roberre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s so hard to watch her slip away when she was never yours to start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practiced Disinterest

It’s so hard to watch her slip away when she was never yours to start.  


But then, you do know it’s better this way. Even without your… rather colourful history, it’s obvious she was born for freedom. She needs more than a mop bucket and dusty old books. She’s meant for gardens and mountains and the open air. More than you, _dearie_.  


So you offer her an escape, and you force a smile as she walks out the door with her basket slung delicately over her arm. You smile even though you know she’ll leave, even though you give yourself a week before you’ll tack the curtains back up and forget the warmth of her smile and the sunlight on your skin.  


If you take the time to consider it—which you don’t, because you spend the entire time she’s away trying not to think about her— you’re almost relieved. Because she may be the one thing that can ever, ever hurt you again.  


Still, you find yourself watching from the tower every night, your eyes fixated on the horizon. Searching. Waiting. And then she comes home, and you watch her as she opens the gate and sashays her way through the garden… and suddenly you can’t stop your legs from carrying you, running down the endless hallways and spiralling staircases to reach your spinning wheel, slipping into a mask of practiced disinterest…  


She might ruin your life.  


Or, you realize suddenly, straw in hand and pretending not to have missed her, maybe she’ll save it.


End file.
